In this Book
- Colonizing the Realm of Words: The Transformation of Tamil Literature in Nineteenth-Century South India
- Book
- 2010
- Published by: State University of New York Press
summary
Details the transformation of Tamil literary culture that came with colonialism and the encounter with Western modernity. A true tour de force, this book documents the transformation of one Indian literature, Tamil, under the impact of colonialism and Western modernity. While Tamil is a living language, it is also India’s second oldest classical language next to Sanskrit, and has a literary history that goes back over two thousand years. On the basis of extensive archival research, Sascha Ebeling tackles a host of issues pertinent to Tamil elite literary production and consumption during the nineteenth century. These include the functioning and decline of traditional systems in which poet-scholars were patronized by religious institutions, landowners, and local kings; the anatomy of changes in textual practices, genres, styles, poetics, themes, tastes, and audiences; and the role of literature in the politics of social reform, gender, and incipient nationalism. The work concludes with a discussion of the most striking literary development of the time—the emergence of the Tamil novel.
Table of Contents
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- List of Figures and Tables
- pp. xi-xii
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- pp. xiii-xviii
- List of Abbreviations
- pp. xix-xx
- 1. Introduction
- pp. 1-32
- 5. The Emergence of the Tamil Novel
- pp. 205-246
- 6. Epilogue
- pp. 247-252
- References
- pp. 299-340
Additional Information
ISBN
9781438432014
DOI
MARC Record
OCLC
670429592
Pages
379
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No